LYRIC VERSES The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peaceWhere Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung' Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set. The Scian and the Teian muse, To sounds which echo further west The mountains look on Marathon— I dreamt that Greece might still be free; A king sate on the rocky brow, Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships by thousands lay below, And men in nations; all were his! He counted them at break of day— And when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now— The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? And answer, "Let one living head,But one arise-we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb. In vain—in vain: strike other chords; And shed the blood of Scio's vine! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, The nobler and the manlier one! Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! It made Anacreon's song divine: He served but served Polycrates— A tyrant: but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend' That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Such as the Doric mothers bore; Trust not for freedom to the Franks- Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Place me on Sunium's marbled steepWhere nothing save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die : A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine! KEATS FROM "ISABEL FAIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel! Lorenzo, a young palmer in love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell Without some stir of heart, some malady; They could not sit at meals but feel how well It soothed each to be the other by ; They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep With every morn their love grew tenderer, To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; |